Budgets And Box Scores: Funding Sports In Boston Public Schools

In professional sports, Boston is TitleTown, U.S.A. Since 2001, the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins have won a combined seven league championships.

If only the same could be said of sports in Boston Public Schools. Just four years ago, Boston’s student-athletes performed in shabby — and even dangerous — conditions. Today, the city’s school sports program has undergone unprecedented changes.

In a weeklong series (May 13-17, 2013), Karen Given and Doug Tribou of WBUR’s Only A Game examine the current state of sports in Boston’s public schools and the public-private partnerships working to improve students’ performance on and off the field.

In sports there are scores and records. In school there are tests and grades. And for Boston students participating in the school district’s privately funded sports programs, all of those are important.

Play Ball! and Boston Scholar Athletes fund school athletic programs and work to make sure students are meeting GPA requirements to participate. But some say the city’s requirements should be more challenging.

After a scathing report on the state of sports in Boston Public Schools, two community leaders stepped up to pitch in. In Part 1 of a weeklong series, we track the school system’s progress and ask: Is the outside help enough?